Screaming Eagle Posted December 22, 2007 Share Posted December 22, 2007 GOD SO LOVED THAT HE GAVE..... Dear Friends, As another year ends and a new one approaches, I sense a deep and powerful yearing in our Lord's heart. I believe He is longing for a Body that knows how to give itself away to one another. We know so much about the subject of giving, don't we? So much of our time and effort goes into giving of our resources to the poor and hungry; giving of our strength to the weak and downtrodden; giving of our time and support to our children and loved ones; giving of service to our church; giving of our financial aid to missions and ministries, etc. etc. We know so much and yet we still know so little. One vital thing the Body of Christ has yet to learn about giving is how to give ourselves to each other. One of the greatest revelations we can experience in our spiritual journey is that every member of Christ's Body desperately needs the fellowship, nurture and love of others in Christ's Body. Jesus taught His disciples they must learn to love one another. In all His interactions with them, He demonstrated that love, yet scripture records time and again they just didn't get it. Not until after He left them did they begin to find out just how much they really needed one another. Not until His physical presence had departed from them did they begin to walk with each other in the same manner of love He demonstrated. We desperately need a renewed revelation that will bring forth the love of the Body for the Body. We may minister tirelessly into the world, but the world can never provide the selfless love each one of us craves and needs. Only within the Body of Christ will we find the love of Christ. But while we've become consumed with doing and serving, we've learned so little about loving one another. We can preach to one another, pray for one another, lay hands on one another, worship with one another, but do we know what it is to simply be friends, unconditionally, to one another? Do we highly esteem our spiritual family, even above our own flesh and blood? Jesus did (Mat. 12:46-50). In a dark, dirty Bethlehem cavern so many years ago, the Son of God gave us Himself in the form of a tiny, helpless newborn child. In that moment of birth, God did the unthinkable by loving us so much that He gave His beloved Son into the fallen, corrupted hands of mankind. That newborn baby grew to manhood and called His followers His friends (John 15:15). The Son of God, through Whom all things were made, called us His friends - and then gave Himself away for us. And we, His spiritual Body, are called to follow, giving ourselves away as He did - one to the other. His friends must become our friends in every sense of the word. Christmas will come and go, as all Christmases do, but what do we, the Body of Christ, desire from the coming New Year? Do we desire health and happiness, signs and wonders, prosperity and comfort, expansion of ministry perhaps? Or can we lift our hopes, prayers, words and actions to a higher level, desiring above all what Jesus Himself greatly desires - that His Body on earth might be bound together with the same sacrificial love that binds the Father and the Son (John 17:21-23). I do not have a heartstopping "word" for the coming year to fill your Christmas stocking with. There will be no "Things Will be Great in 2008" prophecy from this ministry. What I do know, however, is that it is vital the Body of Christ learns how to be the Body together. We must learn to give to one another even beyond that which we give to the world. We must learn the hard lesson of giving ourselves away to our brethren, the disciple-friends of Jesus. The world needs us to love one another! Otherwise, how will they know what love is? That will take humility, wisdom and prayer, but we must be willing to love one another unconditionally, even when we can't agree. If we are willing, He will do the rest. God so loved that He gave Himself away. My prayer for all of us this Christmas is that in the coming year we too will learn to do the unthinkable - that we will so love that we will give ourselves away........ to one another. Love.... bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails. Loving His Appearing, Cheryl McGrath Great South Land Ministries www.greatsouthland.org December 2007 Link to comment
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